


The Girl in the Tower

by MirrorMystic



Series: The War of Dreams [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: A girl and her friendly ghost, Bad Dreams, Flashbacks, Gen, Pre-Canon, girl meets girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-09 05:11:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20848061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/pseuds/MirrorMystic
Summary: Before Hamir and Tira embarked on their journey across their fallen kingdom to fulfill their best friend’s last wish, there was another girl, across the sea: a girl in a gilded cage, with an angel on one shoulder and old ghosts on the other...





	The Girl in the Tower

**Author's Note:**

> A companion piece to "The Dreaming and the Dead". Go check out that story and all the other tales from the War of Shadows at the link above!

_~*~__  
__  
__This is a dream. __  
__  
__The thought strikes her, as it does every night, as she walks the long corridor out to the castle courtyard. This is a dream, and she knows it’s a dream because she is a priestess of Luna, who has dominion over the dreaming and the dead.__  
__  
__But she cannot stray from the path. She strides forward, bound by the currents that flow in dreams. She knows what awaits her out in that courtyard. But she cannot turn away. __  
__  
__She emerges into the courtyard. She sees Mother and Father make their rounds through the gathered crowd. She watches them shake hands with Generals, Judges. The brightest minds in the Empire, all assembled, ready to make history. __  
__  
__She sees the Director of Special Projects turn from his console and smile in her direction. But it isn’t for her; it is for the young woman beside her, sword at her hip, hands clasped behind her back. __  
__  
__The woman looks away, embarrassed. She meets her eyes, and they share a laugh. __  
__  
__It should be a fond memory. In this entire crowd of the Imperial elite, her bodyguard is the closest thing she has to a friend. __  
__  
__But the memory is forever stained. Tainted by what comes next. __  
__  
__The Director unveils his prototype. He gives some grand speech about how it is a triumph of magical engineering, how it shall lead the Empire to greater glory, and all those other things that fly over the head of a ten-year-old.__  
__  
__He pulls a lever on a console. Above him, a dozen spherical panes of glass etched with arcane sigils begin to spin. __  
__  
__Light gathers within the concentric spheres. A filthy, false sun spins into existence in the heart of the Empire. __  
__  
__“Shut it down! Shut it down!” she hears someone cry. __  
__  
__She squeezes her eyes shut against the coming catastrophe. The light radiating from the project becomes toxic, glaring, pulsing against her eyelids--__  
__  
__But there is another light here. One soft, and gentle, like a star. __  
__  
__An angel. A girl, made of light. __  
__  
__“Take my hand,” she says. __  
__  
__She reaches out. And her eyes--__  
__  
__~*~__  
__  
_\--open.  
  
She took a deep breath, and let it out slow. She tossed her blankets aside and sat up, parting the translucent gauze curtain hanging from the frame of her four-poster bed.   
  
A shallow bowl of clean water sat on her nightstand. She splashed water over her face, rubbing at her eyes. Her reflection gazed up at her from the rippling water. Moon-pale skin. Hair dark as night. That’s how a poet would describe her, but she was no poet. Her pale skin was more a symptom of her captivity than it was any mark of beauty.   
  
_You’re being too hard on yourself_, came a voice.   
  
She smiled, despite everything.   
  
“What, you’re a mind reader now?”  
  
_No_, the voice giggled. _Just a feeling I get whenever I see a girl look in the mirror for too long.__  
__  
_She turned towards the voice, taking in the sight of her room. Silk sheets. Four-poster bed. Plush carpet soft enough to walk on barefoot. A gorgeous hand-carved writing desk where she took her lessons, which must have been a real pain to haul up the steps.   
  
It wasn’t bad. For a cage. But in astral space, all those mundane comforts melted away, and her companion shone like a star.   
  
A white light, in the shape of a girl. Her friend. Her angel.   
  
_Are you okay?_ Her angel murmured.  
  
The nightmare, the memory, lingered on the backs of her eyelids, seared into her skull. She rubbed her eyes, blowing out a sigh.   
  
“‘Okay’ is relative,” she mused.   
  
_You were having that dream again,_ her angel said gently. _I tried to pull you out early. __  
__  
_“It’s okay,” she said, mashing a fist into her eyes. Glimpses of spinning glass and alchemical fire still lingered like floaters on the edge of her vision. “I know how it ends.”  
  
_I know,_ her angel cooed. _But you shouldn’t have to see it every time._  
  
She smiled. “...Thanks.”  
  
Her angel was sitting at the foot of her bed, her bed rendered as little more than a charcoal smear in the shadowed world of astral space. Her angel offered her hand, and she took it.   
  
She couldn’t feel her, of course. But it was nice to pretend.   
  
Three sharp bangs at her door jolted them out of their reverie.   
  
“Lunch!” a gruff voice called.   
  
“What? Already?” she stood, and threw open her curtains, earning her a faceful of unexpected sunshine. She whirled around, scrambling for something to wear, finally grabbing a robe hanging on the back of a chair and pulling it on over her shift.   
  
There was a series of metal thuds as the bolts were drawn back, and her room’s heavy wooden door creaked open. Two guards stepped inside; one carrying a mess tray, the other a crossbow. The first guard dropped the tray on her desk with a clatter.   
  
“Alright, Princess. Arms up, feet apart.”  
  
She grit her teeth. She crossed into the middle of the room, where any improvised weapons would be well out of arms’ reach, and let him pat her down. A pointless part of their routine, she thought. What could she do to a man in half-plate, even if she’d managed to conceal some sort of blade?  
  
Of course, there could have been another reason for the daily searches. One that made the bile rise in her throat.  
  
“Why do you always have such big sleeves?” the guard muttered, his face uncomfortably close to hers. “What are you hiding in there?”  
  
“My arms,” she said flatly. She could feel his breath on her face. Her lip curled in disgust.   
  
Finally, the guard stepped back and nodded to her table with a grunt. She let out the breath she’d been holding, and sat down to eat, constantly aware of the crossbow leveled at her back.   
  
She saw her angel in the corner of her eyes. She was diminished in the sunlight, but she was still there, a glint of white, like a mote of dust caught in a sunbeam.  
  
She took a steadying breath, and ate in silence, while the guards kept on talking like she wasn’t even there.   
  
“You heard about the arrival we’re getting in tonight?”  
  
“Why should I care about who comes into port?” the other guard shrugged.   
  
“You should care,” the first guard said idly, adjusting his grip on his crossbow. “Apparently we’re getting a visit from some VIP.”  
  
“If they were a VIP, they wouldn’t be stuck out on this rock.”  
  
“Heh. What does that say about us?”  
  
“Us?” the other guard sneered, leering. “What does that say about the Princess?”  
  
“Well, at least we won’t have to be on short rations much longer…”  
  
“I hear that. I tell you, the only arrival I care about is our monthly restock. Finally get a proper meal in the mess again. I don’t know how the Princess can eat that slop.”  
  
“She’s gotta eat something. She’s a growing girl, you know. Maybe someday she’ll finally get some meat on her bones.”  
  
They laughed, and she could feel the poison of their eyes upon her. She felt the anger rise in her cheeks, dispelled with a sigh. There was nothing she could do but retreat into her mind-- into the shadowed world of astral space, so much more inviting than the real…  
  
~*~  
  
_She remembers it like it was yesterday. __  
__  
__All those nights, draped across her windowsill, gazing out across the sea. All the crushing loneliness, all the fruitless longing. All the anger and bitterness from being trapped in a cage. __  
__  
__So she escapes, in the only way she knows how: she casts herself into astral space, trading her tower-- all comfort and no warmth-- for the gray hues of the halfway place. __  
__  
__She soars across the ocean, bodiless and free. __  
__  
__In astral space, the light of life shines like a star, with mages shining brighter than most. Ever since the catastrophe eight years ago, the Empire was a black void-- a hole in the world where a nation should be. Empty. Hollow. __  
__  
__The ocean is dark, but it’s a comforting darkness. Pure. Unspoiled. The simple minds of its inhabitants register as sparks in astral space, flickering beneath the waves like starlight glinting off the tide. __  
__  
__The vastness of the ocean is so bewildering and alien compared to the confines of her tower, it’s tempting just to dive in and immerse herself in the dark unknown. But as she flies over the water, faster than any ship, she can feel the currents of magic swirling through astral space, guiding her to Corona’s far shore. __  
__  
__Through astral space, she has borne witness to the war carried out in her name. These far shores are tainted now, stained by loss and grief and surrender. __  
__  
__But there is something here, or someone, lingering on the shore. __  
__  
__An orphan. An angel. __  
__  
__A girl, all in white. _  
  
~*~  
  
The crack of a wooden cane against the top of her desk snapped her back to the present.   
  
“Daydreaming again,” her tutor scolded. “Hardly a habit fit for a princess, Your Highness.”  
  
She blew out a weary sigh. Her tutor’s near-permanent scowl only deepened.   
  
“Do not _huff_ at me, young lady,” he chided. “Come with me. Come on, up you go.”  
  
He crossed over to the window and threw open the curtains. He tapped his cane against the windowsill as if it were a conductor’s baton.   
  
“Right here, young lady. Look here. What do you see?”  
  
She gazed out across the sea, to the sun setting over Corona in the west. The sunset painted the sky red and gold in a stunning, vibrant display. To the east, Umbra looked drab by comparison. The skies over the Empire were choked with gray storm clouds, a constant fixture ever since the calamity eight years ago.   
  
She shrugged. “I see rain tomorrow.”  
  
“What you _should_ see is the future,” he said sternly. “The sun setting over the Kingdom of Corona, their light getting dimmer every day. The Umbra Empire, untouched by any light in the sky. You see, Your Highness, the Starfall was not just a disaster; it was a warning. Magic is not the answer. Humanity will not find the future through the arcane or divine. Humanity must look to themselves.”  
  
He cracked his cane against the windowsill for emphasis.   
  
“That’s why I shall have no more daydreaming in my lessons, Your Highness,” he declared. “Whatever answers you seek, you will not find them outside yourself. Humanity must rely on its own strength. In the end… we are alone.”  
  
She wasn’t so sure about that. Because when she was standing at her window just so her tutor could make a point, there were three other things that caught her eye. The iron bars over her window, as if to remind her that, for all its comforts, this tower was still a prison. The supply ship, easing its way into port. And her angel, waiting in the corner of her vision.   
  
Her tutor was right about one thing: no more daydreaming. No more distractions. Because not long after the end of yet another long-winded lecture, she was sitting on the edge of her bed with a pack slung on her shoulders, glancing anxiously at the supply ship moored at the docks and the workmen hauling crates into the kitchens.   
  
She let out a shuddering breath, drumming her fingers on her knees. Her anxious energy pooled in her hands. The charcoal-gray of astral space bled into her senses, and she saw her angel sitting beside her, offering her hand.   
  
She smiled, and took it with a squeeze. Again, she couldn’t feel her. But even just pretending gave her some relief.   
  
“Tonight’s the night,” she muttered, adrenaline coursing through her veins. “Are you ready?”  
  
_Am I ready?_ Her angel teased. _You’re the one doing all the work._   
  
She flashed her a manic smile, flush with nerves. She couldn’t see her angel’s face, but she liked to think that she was smiling back.   
  
_Are you afraid?_   
  
“What? No. Of course not. I’m fine. I’m peachy.”  
  
An errant breeze blew in through her window, and for a moment, just a moment, she swore she could feel a hand in hers.   
  
_No matter what happens, I’ll be with you. Always.__  
__  
_She nodded. She took a deep breath, and let it out slow.   
  
Three raps at the door. “Dinner!” they called.   
  
The bolts drew back. The door creaked open, and two guards stepped inside; one, dropping the tray on her desk, the other, his crossbow leveled and ready.   
  
“Alright, you know the drill, Princess,” the guard leered. “Let’s get on with it.”  
  
She grit her teeth, and let him get close, close enough to feel his foul breath on her neck--  
  
\--close enough to put his bulk between her and the crossbow.   
  
The slap rang out in the confines of the room. The guard recoiled, astonished, a stinging handprint on his cheek already shimmering with violet light.   
  
A bolt of viscous ooze hit the second guard right in the face. He cried out, firing blind, the crossbow bolt whizzing over the princess’ head. A tendril of violet light lashed around his ankle and yanked him off his feet. In an instant, she was on top of him, a hand clamped over his mouth.   
  
_“Sleep,”_ she commanded, and he obeyed. He joined his partner on the carpet, violet smoke rising from their eyelids, the latter unconscious before he even hit the ground.   
  
She tore the keyrings from the guards’ belts and heaved the door shut, sliding in the bolts and clicking the padlock in place before pitching the keys out a window and into the woods below. She hurried down the steps as quickly as she dared, until she felt a breeze across the back of her neck and a familiar voice in her ear.   
  
_Wait. Wait!__  
__  
_She stopped short, heeding her angel’s hissing in alarm. She heard footsteps below her-- too many, too many. She turned around and scurried up the stairs, up past her room to the aerie at the top of the tower.   
  
“How many inside?” she whispered, breathless.   
  
_Just one,_ her angel replied.   
  
At the top of the tower was a single clerk at a desk piled high with parchment scrolls. He was partway through penning a missive when a tendril of dark magic coiled around the back of his chair. The princess yanked him backwards, catching his face in her hands. There was a violet flash, and he fell to the floor, asleep, violet smoke wafting from his eyelids.   
  
Hundreds of beady black eyes stared at her from the rafters. This island was called the Crow’s Nest, and for good reason-- sitting roughly at the halfway point between Corona and Umbra, the Crow’s Nest was a communications outpost and relay station for the Empire’s network of messenger crows.   
  
There were no bars on these windows. These crows could come and go as they please. Now, they stared down at her, unblinking, as if daring her to do the same.   
  
She made her way to the ledge. It was a dizzying drop to the base of the tower. She glanced behind her, to the frail torchlight coming up the steps, the pounding of boots against the stonework. She turned back to the ledge, staring.   
  
“I…” she swallowed. “I don’t know if…”  
  
_I’ll catch you,_ her angel whispered. _I promise._   
  
“...Okay,” she breathed.   
  
She jumped. For a long moment, there was a sickening feeling of falling, of the ground rising up to smash her to a pulp. But as she fell, her shadow billowed out behind her like ink in water. Darkness spread from her shoulders like black-feathered wings, cut through with starlight and ribbons of violet nebulae.   
  
She landed on her feet, her angel guiding her descent as gently as her head hitting the pillow. She turned, craning her head to see the aerie, high above, and the lantern she’d left burning in her window.   
  
“Which way to the port?” she gasped, practically choking on adrenaline. The white light appeared in the corner of her eyes, and she followed it, racing through the trees.   
  
A manic feeling surged through her body. Almost there. Almost there…  
  
The sun had sunk below the horizon, but she could still see; in the shadows of astral space, the trees rose around her, bone-white and stark against the ashen ground. She could see the ship waiting at the end of the dock. She was so close. So close--  
  
She grunted as she collided with something solid, and landed on her backside in the grass. She lifted her head, and saw an Imperial trooper on patrol, staring at her through his stylized skull helm.   
  
“Princess?”  
  
She pounced on him, violet light shining at her fingertips, but her sleep spell skittered across his armor like a drop of water in a hot pan, unable to find purchase in his flesh. She clawed at him, but he grabbed her wrists and forced her back, grappling in the undergrowth.   
  
“Alarm!” he cried. “Alarm!”  
  
She rammed her knee into his gut, his grip loosening on her wrist. She wrenched her hand free, conjured a whip-like tendril of dark magic, and slit his throat.   
  
The lash of violet light opened his neck like piano wire. He crumpled in her hands, feebly clutching at his neck even as his life dribbled out between his fingers. He let out a rattling gasp, and fell face down in the dirt.   
  
She stared at him in abject horror, a hand clamped over her mouth. Slowly, she sank to her knees. Her whole body was shaking.   
  
She… she had just…  
  
_Get up, Princess,_ her angel urged. _Get up. Get up!_  
  
She took a haggard gulp of air, steadied the ringing in her ears. She could hear the distant shouts, the torchlight bobbing through the woods.   
  
She drew the darkness around her like a cloak, and she ran.   
  
~*~  
  
_Every night, the same dream. __  
__  
__The memory lingers, seared into her skull. She’s walking the long corridor out into the castle courtyard, her sword heavy at her hip. __  
__  
__In truth, it’s only a training weapon. A squire’s weapon. One day, she’ll get a real sword. Perhaps even one of the famous obsidian blades, hand-forged for the Imperial elite. Not made of actual obsidian, of course, but out of gorgeous, blackened steel. __  
__  
__The princess walks beside her. Ten years old, now; too old, she insists, to need someone to hold her hand. She turns to look at her, but the memories ache, and pull her gaze away. __  
__  
__Mother is waiting for them up ahead, looking resplendent in her armor. A moon-pale cape over midnight-blue, with a black-feathered mantle around her shoulders. Mother catches her eye just for a moment before bowing deeply at the waist. __  
__  
__“Your Majesty,” she intones. __  
__  
__“Praetor Celes,” the Emperor says warmly, urging her back up. “My congratulations to you on your historic day.”__  
__  
__“You honor me, Your Majesty,” Mother says. “Truthfully, it’s my husband’s day. All I’ve done was make sure he lived to see it.”__  
__  
__“Nonsense,” the Emperor laughs. “You’re here, and that’s not nothing. Why, one day, my daughter will be the one on that stage, and your girl will be right there beside her…”__  
__  
__~*~__  
__  
_She stepped out onto the docks, two of her subordinates at her heels. She wasn’t a fool; she knew this reassignment was just the Senate’s way of keeping her out of their hair. She wasn’t exactly expecting the finest welcome, but she was certainly expecting more than this.   
  
An empty dock. Patrols of troopers running every which way without sparing her a passing glance. Not even a token honor guard to welcome her to the island. Is this the kind of lax discipline that festers when you’re so far from the capital?   
  
“You there!” one of her officers called out to a passing trooper. “Where is the Captain of this garrison?”  
  
“The Captain’s got his own problems!” the trooper called back, unhelpfully. She could hear the rustling of their armor as her two officers exchanged glances.   
  
She sighed, and stepped into the path of the next patrolman scurrying past the docks. Unlike her subordinate, she did not beat around the bush. She drew her sword.   
  
The trooper skidded to a halt just before he could impale himself on the brandished blade. He glanced down at the gleaming black blade before she caught him on the chin and tipped his head up.   
  
“Trooper,” she said levelly, “what has happened here?”  
  
The trooper’s eyes flicked down, taking in her armor-- moon-white over midnight-blue, a mantle of black feathers around her shoulders. He gulped.   
  
“...Who are you?”  
  
“I am Praetor Ophelia Celes, guard of the Imperial bloodline,” she declared. “Where is Princess Antenea?”  
  
~*~  
  
Antenea exhaled, shifting her vision into astral space. In that shadowed world, a curtain of violet light wrapped around her like a quilt. A shroud of Lunar magic. To any mages, she would be shining like a star, as clear as day. But in realspace, she was invisible-- just a flicker of movement on the edge of your vision, an extra shadow in the darkened hold.   
  
Her angel sat with her, curled up beside her. They were pressed together in the enclosed space, since Antenea’s illusion was only so large. She was sure her back would be sore in the morning. But for the moment, she was so, so warm.   
  
She shouldn’t have been so happy. She was lying on a hard wooden floor, packed in among the crates and barrels of a damp and stifling ship’s hold, with no idea how long it would be until they made it to the next harbor. Once she’d gone through all the food she’d managed to pack, she would have to resort to whatever she could sneak from the ship’s pantry. And even if she made it to shore undiscovered, then she’d still be a stranger in a strange land, ravaged by a war done in her name.   
  
But none of that mattered now. She was out.   
  
She was out, and she was not alone.   
  
Princess Antenea laid down on the wooden deck, with only her bent elbow as a pillow. Despite everything, she was smiling. She felt a stray breeze in the stifling hold, and could have sworn she felt ghostly arms around her waist.   
  
Antenea closed her eyes and let the waves rock her to sleep, and for the first time in eight years, she dreamed of better days.   
  
~*~  
  
_“Why are you here?” she had asked that faceless shade, on Corona’s distant, rocky shore. __  
__  
_**_I’m searching for someone,_**_ the girl had said. _**_Are you?_****_  
_****_  
_**_“...Yeah,” she had murmured. “I guess I am.”__  
__  
_**_Why are you here? How can you see me?_**  
  
_“I’m a Lunar priestess, and, um… I’m also a princess,” she had said. “Princess Antenea Penumbra, heir to the Umbra Empire.”__  
__  
_**_That’s quite a mouthful,_**_ the girl had replied, shining like a star. __  
__  
__“My friends call me Ten,” she’d said, sheepish, “although… I don’t have many of those.”__  
__  
_**_Alright, Ten,_**_ her angel had smiled. _**_Call me Stel._**_  
__  
__~*~_


End file.
